UNITED NATIONS – The United States asked on Wednesday the rest of the world’s countries to break all relations with North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s repeated weapons tests, and it warned that if there is a war “the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.”

“In addition to fully implementing all UN sanctions, all countries should sever diplomatic relations with North Korea and limit military, scientific, technical, or commercial cooperation,” said US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at an emergency Security Council session in New York.

“They must also cut off trade with the regime by stopping all imports and exports, and expel all North Korean workers,” she added.

“The dictator of North Korea made a choice yesterday that brings the world closer to war, not farther from it,” Haley said. “We have never sought war with North Korea, and still today we do not seek it. If war does come, it will be because of continued acts of aggression like we witnessed yesterday.”

“And if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed,” she added.

Haley also emphasized the need for Beijing to do more, specifically suspending oil exports to North Korea, which shares a border with China.

She said that US President Donald Trump had asked his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping to suspend oil deliveries to Pyongyang during a telephone conversation between the two leaders on Wednesday.

Haley noted that when China took the same measures in 2003 Pyongyang agreed to negotiate.

The US envoy to the international body said that the whole world should treat North Korea as the international pariah it has become and, among other things, prohibit it from voting in the UN.

North Korea said on Tuesday that it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry a “super-large heavy warhead” and which is capable of striking the continental US.

Pyongyang fired a Hwasong-15 missile over Japan which ultimately plunged into the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away. During its flight, it reached the highest altitude ever recorded for a North Korean missile.

Military analysts say that if the trajectory had been flatter the ICBM could have traveled far enough to reach the US mainland.

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